


dreaming of an open sky

by scheherazade



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-14
Updated: 2012-02-14
Packaged: 2017-12-06 18:10:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/738613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scheherazade/pseuds/scheherazade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Christian plays football at uni, Mesut works at his brother's shop, and all is not quite right with the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dreaming of an open sky

"Don't look now," says Nuri one morning, "but here comes trouble."

Trouble is a dark-haired German standing outside, peering through rusted iron grating at the window display. Mesut set it up himself yesterday. Second-hand DVDs, the plastic covers absolved of fingerprints and half-torn stickers picked meticulously clean.

Nuri squeezes in behind the counter with Mesut. "Should I call your brother?"

"He's just looking."

"He's _German._ "

And he's not much older than Mesut by the looks of him. The same breeze that disturbs litter in the street pushes back the fall of hair from his eyes when he looks up — to read the sign over the storefront? That doesn't make sense; the writing's in Turkish. 

Nuri inches toward the phone. Mesut slaps Nuri's hand away before he can pick up the receiver. 

"Watch the store," Mesut tells him. Grabs his jacket from beneath the counter. "And don't call my brother."

"Where you going?"

Mesut nicks the pack of cigarettes from Nuri's back pocket, shakes one loose, tosses the box back. Nuri catches with two hands.

"Out," Mesut says. "Don't call my brother. I mean it."

The back door lets out to a blast of greasy air courtesy of the cookshop next door. A gaggle of children with dirty hands are squatted around a pile of marbles and coins, squabbling over a magazine cover of Zidane.

One of the boys runs after him, calling his name, "Mes, Mes!" He's missing two front teeth when he smiles. "Got any change, Mes? Just need ten cents. Just ten."

Mesut pockets his lighter, takes a drag on his cigarette. "Ten cents for what?"

"For a football. We almost got enough. We'll pay you back."

"That's what you said last time." Mesut drops twenty cents into the kid's outstretched palm. "Keep it. But break my shop window again and Mutlu's gonna stuff you in the garbage with the glass."

"We won't!"

The promise follows him down to the street, mixed with shrieking laughter. It fades as he walks. The bus stop on the corner is deserted at this hour. He doesn't sit on the bench. Stands with his back to the facade of an apartment block marked for demolition. The sign is five years old, edges tattered with rain.

Mesut leans against it and watches the smoke rise from his lips to a clear March sky. 

"Excuse me."

Mesut looks down, to his left. It's the German from earlier. Fair skin, deep-set eyes. _Trouble._ Mesut carefully shifts his balance to the balls of his feet. Takes another drag on his cigarette and doesn't say anything.

"Are you from around here?" Trouble asks. He's wearing jeans with loafers, an oversized sweater and a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He adjusts the strap once, twice. Like a nervous tick.

"Yeah." Mesut shrugs. "I live here."

"That's great," Trouble says. "I'm looking for the local football team. A friend told me this, um, neighborhood has one. Do you know where they meet?"

Mesut eyes him. "Why?"

"To set up a friendly. I'm on the football team, at the university? And I was thinking, because we've never played against any local sides?"

"They disbanded," says Mesut, "a couple years ago." 

A truck passes by in the street. 

"Oh." The guy opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again and says, "So do you," before he interrupts himself, "Sorry. I don't mean to be rude. I'm Christian, by the way."

"And I'm busy." Mesut snuffs his cigarette against the bricks; it leaves a mark. "There's other football clubs. Take the bus uptown."

Mesut turns and walks away before the guy can ask if he plays, too.

 

 

 

He forgets about the whole thing until weeks later. He's coming back from the Berlin offices, because Nuri twisted his ankle yesterday so again Mesut is the one who has to go file their forms. It's a long train ride, made worse by the rickety caboose crammed full of people. By the time Mesut finally gets back it's already dark outside.

Worse, he reaches into his pocket and realizes he forgot his bus card. He hasn't got any cash either.

Nuri is going to hell, he decides. It's a forty-minute trek home from the rail station. There are thunderheads gathering on the horizon. Mesut puts his head down and starts walking.

Not fast enough. The hailstorm catches him in the middle of a residential district. He pulls his jacket over his head and ducks into the nearest doorway for shelter. The pavement chatters under the barrage of hail.

He can't stay here. Someone might look outside and see him. His family is making barely enough to cover rent, much less bail. 

So he's trying to gauge the correlation between the size of the hailstones and his chances of getting concussed — when an umbrella pops into the doorway, followed by a man. _Shit._ Mesut doesn't stop to think, throws his arms over his head and darts out into the storm.

An arm barred across his chest stops him short. 

"—re you going?" a voice yells right in his ear, barely audible over the hail. Mesut recognizes it.

Because there's an umbrella over his head, and the guy holding it is. Dark hair, worried eyes. Trouble, according to Nuri; real name, Christian.

"Come on," he says now as he backs up the steps, pulling Mesut with him. Unlocks the door with his free hand and holds it open. "Come upstairs. You'll get killed out there."

Mesut opens his mouth to point out the irony of that statement. A peal of thunder drowns out his voice, lightning dividing the world into black and white. He ducks inside. Christian follows, folds the umbrella and ushers him upstairs.

The apartment is filled with boxes. Christian nudges a couple out of the way to get to the living area. "Sorry about the, um. It's kind of a mess. But make yourself at home. Want something to drink? Soda?"

Mesut trails after him, sits down slowly on the sofa that Christian points out with a casual wave of the hand before disappearing into the kitchen. He hears a fridge door open. The clink of glasses. Hailstones rattle the windows and walls from without.

He's rattling within when Christian reappears with two cokes, hands one to Mesut, sits on the other end of the sofa. The clack and hiss of an opened can is loud.

"Haven't had one of these in ages," Christian says. "Weren't supposed to, for football. Coach was an asshole about junk food."

Past tense. The silence is expectant. "You quit?"

"Got kicked off the team." Christian says it casually, like someone might mention the weather. "Apparently they didn't like my idea for a friendly. Or my grades. Hope I didn't cause you any trouble, by the way, when we met?"

Mesut shakes his head.

Christian nods, "Good. That's good." Sips his soda. "Never did catch your name."

"...Mesut." There's a knot at the back of his neck and another in his gut. "Why are you doing this?"

"Sorry?"

"Are you a dissenter?"

Christian laughs. "I'm a student. And I play football. That's it."

"So why are you helping me?"

Mesut looks up when there's no immediate answer.

"Because I want to," says Christian. "And it gets a bit quiet, with Jenny gone." He sets his drink on the coffee table, gets up. "I've got leftovers in the fridge. You hungry?"

 

 

 

Christian heats up two plates and they eat in front of the TV, volume turned down low. Mesut picks at his pasta and listens to Christian talk. About university. About his friends. About home, which turns out to be Ingolstadt. Mesut just listens, says as little as he can get away with.

Until Christian mentions "Jenny" for the fifth or six time, and he can't not ask,

"Is she your girlfriend?"

Christian pauses with a forkful of pasta halfway to his mouth. "We were living together." His words are suddenly careful. "If you play football, you know, of course you'll have a girlfriend. But me and Jenny knew each other for a long time before uni, too."

"What happened?"

"She left." Christian puts his plate down. "Dropped out, something about her thesis. Political science. Jenny's smart, but. It's a tough department. Copenhagen might've been better for her from the start."

Anything is better, Mesut thinks. "So you're moving."

"Can't afford this place on my own."

Outside the storm howls on, interrupted only when the thunder speaks. The lights flicker. Mesut watches the blonde reporter on TV blink in and out of existence, bursts of static distorting her perfectly symmetrical face. 

"You can stay here tonight," Christian says. "If you want."

 

 

 

He sleeps on the sofa. Or rather, he lies awake and listens to the hail beat out the seconds in time with the clock. The sofa isn't quite long enough to fit all of him.

The bedroom light is still on.

Around three, he wraps the blanket around himself, pads toward the sliver of brightness afforded by a door left slightly ajar. Christian is sitting in bed, a thick paperback novel propped open against his gathered knees. Mesut perches on the edge of the duvet.

"What are you reading?"

The lamplight glances off the glossy cover when Christian turns it for him to see. " _Angels and Demons_ ," he says. "Ever read it?"

As if he's ever even seen a copy in the country. Mesut shakes his head. 

Christian shifts the book to one hand, reaches for Mesut with the other. Fingers measure the fall of blankets from his shoulders.

"You cold?"

Mesut says, "No," follows the invitation of an open palm drawing him in. Close enough to touch. Lets the blanket go and it falls across them both. Christian's drooping eyes are clear enough, even half in shadow. Mesut licks his lips.

The paperback hits the floor when Mesut kisses him.

Christian kisses back to muffle his voice. "The walls are thin," he says. "Here."

The carpet stains his knees with bruises, but the floor doesn't creak.

 

 

 

After is when Christian finally turns off the lamps. Mesut lingers for as long as he can, until his leg starts jittering and he has to go find his jacket, search the pockets for the last of a battered pack of cigarettes. The click of the lighter shatters the dark.

"Landlord said no smoking indoors."

The yellow flame blinds more than illuminates. Mesut flicks it shut.

"Where's your fire alarm? I can disable it."

The sofa dips under Christian's weight. "Already did."

"Good for you."

Christian laughs, and Mesut can't see it, but he knows what that smile looks like now. Knows that it crinkles Christian's eyes, stretches his cheeks into dimples; his entire face goes blotchy when he blushes.

He listens to the snap and rustle of a newspaper as Christian folds it into a makeshift ashtray. Mesut lets him pluck the cigarette from his fingers. The end glows bright, then dim. 

"You have scars on your legs," says Christian.

"Just my left."

"Accident?"

Mesut takes the cigarette.

"Got into a fight," he says. "These guys came to my neighborhood, after my team won a football match. Bunch of skinheads. Broke my leg in three places."

The smoke stings his eyes when he breathes out.

"I was twelve," says Mesut.

Christian doesn't apologize, which is fine. It isn't his fault. Even if he is German.

Mesut passes the cigarette back, and they share the rest, waiting together for dawn.


End file.
